Epigenesis Sentence Examples

The weight of Malpighi's observations therefore fell into the scale of that doctrine which Harvey terms metamorphosis, in contradistinction to epigenesis.

In fact, while holding firmly by the former, Bonnet more or less modified the latter in his later writings, and, at length, he admits that a " germ " need not be an actual miniature of the organism, hut that it may be merely an " original preformation " capable of producing the latter.4 But, thus defined, the germ is neither more nor less than the "particula genitalis" of Aristotle, or the "primordium vegetale" or " ovum " of Harvey; and the " evolution " of such a germ would not be distinguishable from " epigenesis."

It is a striking example of the difficulty of getting people to use their own powers of investigation accurately, that this form of the doctrine of evolution should have held its ground so long; for it was thoroughly and completely exploded, not long after its enunciation, by Caspar Frederick Wolff, who in his Theoria generationis, published in 1759, placed the opposite theory of epigenesis upon the secure foundation of fact, from which it has never been displaced.

One of Harvey's prime objects is to defend and establish, on the basis of direct observation, the opinion already held by Aristotle, that, in the higher animals at any rate, the formation of the new organism by the process of generation takes place, not suddenly, by simultaneous accretion of rudiments of all or the most important of the organs of the adult, nor by sudden metamorphosis of a formative substance into a miniature of the whole, which subsequently grows, but by epigenesis, or successive differentiation of a relatively homogeneous rudiment into the parts and structures which are characteristic of the adult.

Harvey proceeds to contrast this view with that of the " Medici," or followers of Hippocrates and Galen, who, " badly philosophizing," imagined that the brain, the heart, and the liver were simultaneously first generated in the form of vesicles; and, at the same time, while expressing his agreement with Aristotle in the principle of epigenesis, he maintains that it is the blood which is the primal generative part, and not, as Aristotle thought, the heart.

The facts and theories respecting this are now discussed under such headings as Embryology; Heredity; Variation And Selection; under these headings must be sought information on the important recent modifications with regard to the theory of the relation between the development of the individual and the development of the race, the part played by the environment on the individual, and the modern developments of the old quarrel between evolution and epigenesis.